Sharks Of The Corn isn’t a movie, it’s an act of psychological warfare
In the history of bad shark movies, there have been many that owe their genesis to a particularly good pun but Sharks Of The Corn may be the first to owe its existence to a pun on the writer’s name. Credited as “From an idea by” to Steven Kang, you can see how you get from Stephen King’s Children Of The Corn to this writer/ director Tim Ritter’s utter abomination. In fact, given Mr Kang has exactly one IMDb credit – for this film – you have to wonder if he even exists or was created just to give this weak bit of wordplay some credibility. Then again, credibility doesn’t seem to be high on the priority list here.
When amorous couple Susan (Rebecca Rinehart) and Gary (Jason Boyd) get tipsy and frisky near a Kentucky corn field the worst fate they might be expecting to befall them is a dose of herpes but instead they find themselves improbably mauled to death by what looks like a vinyl shark. Nearby, shark cult worshipping serial killer Teddy Bo Lucas (Steve Guynn) completes his ritual and goes hunting for his next victim. That victim ends up being the sister of Police Chief Vera Scheider (Shannon Stockin) and when Lucas agrees to lead her to her sister’s grave, he reveals that he’s part of a shark worshipping cult intent on world domination.
So far, so incoherent, but Sharks Of The Corn isn’t done yet and before you know it, there are mobsters, an investigative journalist, a crooked mayor, an undercover CIA operative and even a bigfoot cameo to contend with. The effects are sub-bargain basement but they’re still a cut above the performances which range from abjectly terrible to potentially diagnostically relevant from a psychiatric perspective. A plastic shark puppet propped up in front of the camera serves as our primary antagonist, with blood splatter so comically bad it feels like a child’s Halloween prank. The continuity is as disjointed as the narrative, with cornfields mysteriously growing and shrinking within the same scene, and police uniforms that scream Spriti Halloween clearance sale.
The film’s audacity doesn’t stop at its narrative and performances. It makes bold, if baffling, stabs at social commentary, touching on issues like workplace harassment and media manipulation with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. These attempts at satire, like all its attempts at humour, fall flat, serving only to highlight the film’s broader ineptitude. In fact, Sharks Of The Corn goes beyond ineptitude into something darker and more disturbing. It’s a film that seems almost custom designed to be used for enhanced interrogation, confusing and disorientating its subjects in a way that likely violates Article 17 of the Third Geneva Convention. Actually, under the terms of Article 130 of that document, Sharks Of The Corn very probably constitutes a war crime.
